Introduction

Purpose of the Primer

Transportation agencies have long been tasked with
helping to support community goals of mobility, accessibility,
and economic vitality. Recently, there
has been a rising interest in having sustainability
and livability goals help guide transportation system
investments, with considerable focus on the interrelationship
between transportation infrastructure,
housing, and land use planning.

In addition to planning and designing transportation
infrastructure, State, regional, and local governments
play a key role in operating transportation
systems from maintaining local traffic signals and
crosswalks to operating regional transit services
and Statewide traveler information programs.
However, the role that transportation systems management
and operations (M&O) plays in supporting
livability and sustainability has not been well defined.
As a result, transportation planners, operators,
and stakeholders are not fully aware of the role
that M&O may play in achieving livability and sustainability
goals and how M&O strategies can support
these goals in a cost-effective and timely manner.
This primer attempts to respond to these gaps.
It is designed to increase the understanding of the
role of transportation systems M&O in supporting
livable and sustainable communities.

The primer is directed at transportation planners
and transportation system operators at the State,
regional, and local levels. It is also meant to support
the broader audience of stakeholders involved in all
aspects of transportation and community decisionmaking,
from elected officials and interested citizens
to practitioners in related fields such as land
use planning, community development, housing,
the environment, and public health.

What Do We Mean by Livability and Sustainability?

Livability and sustainability are two closely related and
overlapping societal goals that can be supported, in
part, through transportation planning and operations.

Livability in transportation is about using transportation
facilities and services to help achieve broader
community goals, such as increasing travel choices,
improving economic competitiveness, and enhancing
unique community characteristics. Livability directly
benefits people who live in, work in, or visit
an area. Livable transportation systems accommodate
a range of transportation modes (walking, bicycling,
public transit, and automobiles) by creating
balanced multimodal transportation networks that
offer multiple transportation choices. Livable transportation
systems provide reliable and timely access
to jobs, community services, affordable housing,
and schools while helping create safe streets
and expand business access to markets.
Figure 1 lists six principles of livability established in
2009 by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities,
a collaboration among the U.S. Department of
Transportation (U.S. DOT), Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD).

Partnership for Sustainable Communities

In June 2009, U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, HUD
Secretary Shaun Donovan, and EPA Administrator Lisa
P. Jackson announced the new Interagency Partnership
for Sustainable Communities. The partnership defined
six livability principles that will serve as a basis
of interagency coordination designed to help America's
neighborhoods become safer, healthier, and more vibrant.
The partnership will encourage the incorporation of
livability principles into Federal programs while
better protecting the environment, promoting equitable
development, and helping to address the challenges
of climate change.

Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location- and energy-efficient housing choices for
people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of
housing and transportation.

Enhance economic competitiveness. Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely
access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services, and other basic needs by workers,
as well as expanded business access to markets.

Support existing communities. Target Federal funding toward existing communities—through strategies
like transit oriented, mixed-use development, and land recycling—to increase community revitalization
and the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.

Coordinate and leverage Federal policies and investment. Align Federal policies and funding to remove
barriers to collaboration, leverage funding, and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all
levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally
generated renewable energy.

Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by
investing in healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods – rural, urban, or suburban.

Sustainability is frequently defined as "meeting
the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own
needs."2 Sustainability incorporates the "triple bottom
line" concept, which involves maximizing the
positive effect of decisions on three factors: equity
(also known as social or people), ecology (also
known as environment), and economy. The goal of
sustainability is "the satisfaction of basic social and
economic needs, both present and future and the
responsible use of natural resources, all while maintaining
or improving the well-being of the environment
and ecology on which life depends."3
In practice, elements of livability and sustainability
are closely related, and the transportation solutions
that support each area are likely to be similar. Both
livability and sustainability address issues of social
equity and human health and seek to promote more
environmentally friendly travel options and economic
activities.

The key differences between livability and sustainability
are their timeframes and scope. Sustainability
includes a long-term, multigenerational focus that
addresses larger environmental goals such as reducing
climate impacts, increasing energy efficiency,
and reducing natural resource use. Meanwhile,
livability initiatives are often focused on near-term
planning, funding, and implementation strategies at
the community level.

This primer treats livability and sustainability as entwined
concepts, seeking to identify ways that
M&O can support both sets of goals.

M&O is also connected to planning and infrastructure
considerations such as access management,
street network layout, and intersection design (e.g.,
use of roundabouts, right-turn slip lanes and median
islands, four-way stops, turning lanes). The emerging
integration of operational improvements with
urban design and context-sensitive roadway design—
through such means as boulevard designs,
repurposing of excess road capacity for bicycle
lanes, and use of roundabouts—can help improve
vehicular operations and multimodal access while
improving safety, enhancing aesthetics, and reducing
emissions.

M&O strategies involve a range of transportation
operators and stakeholders, such as:

State departments of transportation (DOTs), which
are often responsible for operations on freeways
and major arterials and for programs such as electronic
toll collection, incident management, and
traveler information services.

Local communities, which are often responsible for
local road operations, including traffic signals and
signage, local transit services, and municipal parking.

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), which
often have regional transportation operations committees
to coordinate and integrate regional transportation
planning and operations. Some MPOs
and regional authorities also operate system components,
such as signal systems, traveler information
systems, TDM programs, transit systems,
bridges, and tolling.

Why Is M&O Important to Help Achieve Livability and Sustainability Goals?

Regardless of whether it is a focus or not, the way
in which transportation systems are operated affects
how people and communities interact with
those systems. Table 1 illustrates how transportation
M&O is closely linked to livability and sustainability
concerns.

Some conventional applications of M&O strategies
have been counted as working against livability and
sustainability goals because they facilitate automobile
travel speeds that compromise the safety of
other modes and improve vehicle traffic movement
at the expense of other modes, which potentially
encourages more vehicle travel and resulting emissions.
However, M&O strategy applications can increase
travel choices and efficiency for all modes—including
transit, bicycling, and walking—while reducing
emissions and resource use. For instance, a roadway
can be operated to optimize only vehicle travel
movement, or it can be operated to improve multimodal
system performance through:

Adding bicycle lanes that make it easier and safer
to ride a bicycle, changing signal timing to make it
easier for pedestrians to cross intersections, and
installing pedestrian countdown signals to make it
safer to cross.

Developing ridesharing programs and parking management
strategies that support moving more
people with the same amount of infrastructure.

Both M&O strategies and livability and sustainability
goals share an important objective of using resources
more efficiently, whether those resources are
land, fuel, or funding. M&O strategies do not have
to be expensive or complex. Low-cost actions as
simple as accounting for different factors when developing
traffic signal plans, restriping pavement, or
developing bus schedules and routes can increase
transportation system efficiency. Many M&O strategies
are activities that State and local governments
and transportation agencies currently undertake,
but which they may not consider to be part of their
sustainability or livability efforts.

The key message is that M&O strategies can help
improve how existing transportation systems
interface with the communities they serve. As a
result, considering how transportation is managed
and operated can be a vital aspect of supporting livable
communities and sustainable planning efforts.

Table 1. How M&O Affects People and Communities

M&O Affects...

Mobility and Accessibility—How efficiently people and goods can move from place to place and their
ability to take advantage of different transportation choices. Example M&O strategies include park-and-ride
lots, intermodal centers, TSP, and managed lanes.

Safety—How safe it is to walk, bicycle, take transit, or drive from place to place. Example strategies
include traffic signal timing and the addition and improvement of crosswalks and bicycle lanes.

Reliability—How much time travelers are stuck in unexpected traffic due to incidents, work zones,
special events, or bad weather. Example strategies include traveler information systems, incident response
programs, and work zone and special event management.

Community Life—How pleasant the community environment is in urban areas, suburban
neighborhoods, and rural communities. Example strategies include traffic calming, parking management,
and pedestrian countdown signals.

Economic Vitality—How efficiently goods reach markets and how costly it is for the public and shippers
to reach destinations. Example strategies include freight management strategies, ridesharing programs,
and bus rapid transit.

Environmental Quality—How much fuel must be used and pollution produced by transportation
operations. Example strategies include traveler delay reduction programs, encouragement of non-motorized
modes, and support for increased transit ridership and ridesharing.